Martine’s eyes widened. Then she blinked.
“Worse? She’s a mercenary?” Aimée asked.
“Drink your bubbly, we’ll talk in the morning.”
“What did she do?” Aimée reached for Martine’s cigarette. She took a deep drag, exhaled, and gulped her champagne. “I can take it.”
Martine sighed. “Nothing’s conclusive, the article’s full of conjecture.”
“Like I said, I can take it.”
“The article says things about your papa … I’m sorry.”
Martine gestured toward the silk-upholstered Directoire chair by the long windows. Some faxes sat on the arm. Beyond the dark black of the woods shone the distant glow of Neuilly. Aimée grabbed a paper and skimmed the article.
“Some investigation with my father … I don’t understand.”
“Rumor was terrorists blew him up. Seems there was a l’inspection de police, internal affairs had put him under investigation.”
“Makes no sense,” Aimée said, her hand shaking. “The police judiciare contracted with us for surveillance in the Place Vendome. Routine. We did it all the time.”
“Some mistake … they made a mistake, the reports are exaggerated,” Martine said, her eyes down. “It’s late, let’s find you a room.”
And then Aimée understood.
“They thought Papa was dirty, a bent flic!”
Her father’s half-smile floated before her. She imagined his patient eyes and the way he combed his thinning hair over his bald spot. How she’d find him asleep in his uniform in the hard chair by her bed after an all-night stakeout. How he called her his little princess.
“They said he was dirty, didn’t they?” She stood up, knocking over the champagne, which fizzed over the rug. “Never!” she shouted. “Papa worked hard. His men respected him. Not Papa!”
“Of course,” Martine said. She lit another cigarette, passed it to Aimée. “Look at how it’s written. All hearsay. Nasty innu-endo.”
“Every department has flics who lie, who shave the truth, stick bribes in their pocket. But not Papa!”
AIMÉE READ the article standing by Martine’s guest bedroom window overlooking the Bois de Boulogne. The year she’d been an exchange student in New York had been a busy one for her parents. According to the article entitled A COUPLE IN CAHOOTS? by Jacques Caillot in Le Figaro, her father had been under review in connection with art heists. Her mother was mentioned in the same sentence as two bank robberies, one of them involving Haader-Rofmein, one attributed to Action-Réaction.
She remembered the kidnapped Paul Laborde and his Modigliani collection. And that her mother had written Modigliani backwards in the notebook. But the Figaro article only hinted, and gave no proof.
She’d assumed her father had joined her grandfather at Leduc Detective because he’d had enough of bureaucracy. Maybe there had been more to it.
So that’s why Morbier never talked about her father, his old colleague from the police academy. He suspected he was crooked.
Desolation swept over her.
She finally fell asleep, Miles Davis beside her.
Her dreams were filled with bright-hued iguanas, scales swollen and pulsating, trampling through the artists’ squat. Then the nightmare again. This time … her father crawling over the cobblestones, his face melted, her hands bloody from the explosion, only this time the doors led to bricked-in walls … doors to nowhere. Some were blood-smeared, others covered with peeling WANTED posters.
THURSDAY
Thursday Morning
AIMÉE WOKE UP with a start in Martine’s guest room. Dust motes danced in the slanting sunlight on her pillow. Why hadn’t she thought of it before … the old Interpol wanted posters! She’d find this Jules!
But before that she had to ask the reporter, Jacques Caillot, about the article he’d written. Specifically, how he had obtained his information.
She gulped a bowl of café au lait. Her head was hazy so she followed it with an espresso to help her wake up.
She called the visiting office at Frésnes to find when she could see Liane Barolet again.
“Lockdown,” the officer said. “No visitors or mail.”
“For how long?”
“Depends on the warden’s mood,” he said. “Big riot last night. It could last a week.”
A disappointment. But she’d become suspicious of Liane’s having any letters from her mother. Liane was too good a liar. Still, she’d send the papers proving payment to Liane’s lawyer, as she’d promised.
After several calls she discovered Jacques Caillot no longer worked at Le Figaro but ran the Agence France-Presse archives.
“Sorry,” the switchboard operator said. “Monsieur Caillot only takes appointments with press staff. Our archive is limited to journalists, correspondents, and news wire organizations.”
Saying she was a researcher, Aimée made an appointment. Martine handed over her laminated clip-on Madame Figaro ID and her presse card to Aimée, then offered to take Miles Davis and drop him off at the Leduc office later. Aimée borrowed Martine’s black linen Chanel dress and a straw hat. Ten minutes later, she was speeding along the Seine on her scooter.
“Credentials, s’il vous plaît,” the wiry security man said from the booth at Agence France-Presse’s door. His partner watched the monitors fed by surveillance cameras panning the small glassed-in sixties lobby. Outside, the Bourse and the graffiti-covered squat opposite glimmered in the midmorning heat.
Aimée flashed him Martine’s ID and a large smile.
“Archives, please,” she said.
He studied the card, turned it over. She held her breath, hoping he didn’t ask for another piece of ID.
“Through these doors, Mademoiselle, take the second staircase to the basement.”
“Merci,” she said.
She rushed ahead.
“Mademoiselle!”
She stopped. Afraid.
“Sign in, please.”
“Bien sûr,” she said, and wrote “Martine Sitbon” with a flourish.
She passed through the double-swing doors he buzzed open for her. Photographers gripped portfolios, assistants scurried, and the world of breaking news engulfed her.
To the left, narrow linoleum-tiled stairs led down two dank flights. The cisternlike bowels of the building seemed much older than the modernized floors above. Sixteenth century, or even older, she thought.
At the microfiche desk, a pale-faced woman in overalls took her request.
“Attends, he’s on the phone,” she said, her tone listless. Maybe she’d worked down here too long.
By the time she nodded permission to go in, Aimée had written down her questions.
“First door on the right.”
Aimée held her breath as she entered an arched door. The vaulted rose brick walls and stone floor resembled a medieval abbey. Maybe, originally, it was.
Jacques Caillot sat at a stainless steel desk, halogen beams illuminating an old card file he was sorting. Aimée noticed the framed press clippings on the walls from Saigon, Lagos, and Kabul with his byline. There were even foreign press awards.
“Sorry to intrude, Monsieur Caillot,” she said. “I appreciate your seeing me.”
He looked up. “Sit down,” he said. “One moment, and I’ll be finished.”
The dim room and his greenish blue eyes reminded her of peering into an aquarium. She realized one of Caillot’s eyes focused in slow motion. He shut the card file, noticed her gaze.